“It was only hooked,” said Emily.  “Come in, Auntie.  Come in quick!”

Thankful had not waited for the invitation; she was in already.  She took the lantern from her relative’s hand.  Then she shut the door behind her.

“Whew!” she exclaimed.  “If it don’t seem good to get under cover, real cover!  What sort of a place is this, anyhow, Emily?”

“I don’t know.  I—­I’ve been too frightened to look.  I—­I feel like a—­O, Aunt Thankful, don’t you feel like a burglar?”

“Me?  A burglar?  I feel like a wet dishcloth.  I never was so soaked, with my clothes on, in my life.  Hello!  I thought this was an empty house.  There’s a stove and a chair, such as it is.  Whoever lived here last didn’t take away all their furniture.  Let’s go into the front rooms.”

The first room they entered was evidently the dining-room.  It was quite bare of furniture.  The next, however, that which Emily had entered by the window, contained another stove, a ramshackle what-not, and a broken-down, ragged sofa.

“Oh!” gasped Miss Howes, pointing to the sofa, “see! see!  This isn’t an empty house.  Suppose—­Oh, suppose there were people living here!  What would they say to us?”

For a moment Thankful was staggered.  Then her common-sense came to her rescue.

“Nonsense!” she said, firmly.  “A house with folks livin’ in it has somethin’ in the dinin’-room besides dust.  Anyhow, it’s easy enough to settle that question.  Where’s that door lead to?”

She marched across the floor and threw open the door to which she had pointed.

“Humph!” she sniffed.  “Best front parlor.  The whole shebang smells shut up and musty enough, but there’s somethin’ about a best parlor smell that would give it away any time.  Phew!  I can almost smell wax wreaths and hair-cloth, even though they have been took away.  No, this is an empty house all right, but I’ll make good and sure for your sake, Emily.  Ain’t there any stairs to this old rattle-trap?  Oh, yes, here’s the front hall.  Hello!  Hello, up there!  Hi-i!”

She was shouting up the old-fashioned staircase.  Her voice echoed above with the unmistakable echo of empty rooms.  Only that echo and the howl of the wind and roar of rain answered her.

She came back to the apartment where she had left her cousin.

“It’s all right, Emily,” she said.  “We’re the only passengers aboard the derelict.  Now let’s see if we can’t be more comf’table.  You set down on that sofa and rest.  I’ve got an idea in my head.”

The idea evidently involved an examination of the stove, for she opened its rusty door and peered inside.  Then, without waiting to answer her companion’s questions, she hurried out into the kitchen, returning with an armful of shavings and a few sticks of split pine.

“I noticed that woodbox in the kitchen when I fust come in,” she said.  “And ’twa’n’t quite empty neither, though that’s more or less of a miracle.  Matches?  Oh, yes, indeed!  I never travel without ’em.  I’ve been so used to lookin’ out for myself and other folks that I’m a reg’lar man in some ways.  There! now let’s see if the draft is rusted up as much as the stove.”